New opportunities for archaeological research in the Greater Ghingan Range, China: Application of UAV LiDAR in the archaeological survey of the Shenshan Mountain

Abstract

The Greater Khingan Range, located in northeastern China, has long been argued by historians as the birthplace of many ancient nomadic people, such as Xianbei, Khitan, and Mongols, who had a profound impact on the historical course of China and Eurasian. However, till now, only a few archaeological traces of their past activities have been discovered and reported in the region, mainly because lush forest obscures most of the land and seriously impedes its archaeological survey and mapping. To account for the adverse effect of the forest, archaeologists have been applying LiDAR technology in other forested areas worldwide. Nevertheless, there has been a paucity of similar studies in China, particularly in the Greater Khingan Range—a region with great archaeological significance. This paper presents the first integrated application of UAV LiDAR and photogrammetry to detect and map the ancient sites hidden beneath the forest canopy in Shenshan Mountain, located southeast of the Greater Khingan Range. In conjunction with a detailed field survey, the UAV missions successfully revealed, with exceptional clarity, the extent and complexity of the archaeological structures under the forest as well as their topographic context, and thus delivered, for the first time, a holistic picture of the archaeological sites in the area, allowing defining a probable ancient ritual or worship landscape that may date back to the Liao period (907–1125). The successful application of UAV LiDAR in the study has further expanded the ‘world map’ of current global LiDAR archaeology, and has demonstrated for the first time the immense promise of UAV LiDAR for archaeological surveys and landscape archaeology in the area, highlighting new opportunities for archaeological research in the Greater Khingan Range.